This invention relates to a treadmill and particularly to adjusting mechanisms for adjusting the rotative speed and the slope of an endless belt of the treadmill.
A machine denoted as a treadmill has been well known and widely used by many people. Today the treadmill is becoming increasingly popular as an exercise device due to the fact that the space for exercise activity in many cities is gradually decreasing. Ideally, this machine forces a person to move his or her legs at a rate which will prevent the person from being thrown off the exercise device. Typical exercise machines, of course, employ a complicated structure; however, such structure is either inaccessible or difficult to manipulate immediately, so as not to fulfill the requirements of the user.
It is known to provide adjusting mechanisms for adjusting the rotative speed and the slope of an endless belt of the treadmill. One of the known treadmill includes an adjusting mechanism which has a V-belt drive assembly operated by a reversible motor through a gear assembly. The V-belt drive assembly includes a pair of cone-shaped discs, one of the pairs being mounted on an output shaft of a driving motor and the other pair being mounted on a transmission shaft parallel to the output shaft. The pair of the discs mounted on the transmission shaft has a slideable disc which can be moved toward and away from an adjacent fixed disc by the operation of the reversible motor and a telescopic threaded sleeve which is extensible and retractable to move the slideable disc. The transmission shaft is associated operably with the driven shaft of the belt through a complicated gear assembly. The slope adjusting mechanism of this treadmill includes a linkage system which can be adjusted in height through a screw adjustment unit.